Effect of mercury exposure on the growth performance of giant freshwater prawn, macrobrachium rosenbergii post-larvae

The farming of freshwater prawn species, Macrobrachium rosenbergii has become one of the most important sectors in Malaysia. However, as human population has been increased, the human activity also increased, thus spreading the heavy metal in the nature. Therefore, the heavy metal contamination has been introduced into aquatic systems which have become the subject of universal concern. Aquatic species such as fish, prawns, and shrimps may accumulate large amounts of metals in their body. Hence this project was aim to identify the effect of mercury on the growth performance of M. rosenbergii PL using different concentrations of mercury. In the present study, four treatments were used which are 0.01 ppb, 0.03 ppb and 0.05 ppb and each treatment was replicated three times. The uniform length and weight of M. rosenbergii PL were used in the present study are from 1.48 cm to 1.52 cm and from 0.48 g up to 0.52 g. Effects of mercury exposure on the survivability after 96 hours and growth rates were determined. The highest survival rate was from the concentration of 0.01 ppb. The growth performance of the PL was measured for four weeks. And the results shows a significant difference (p<0.05) for all treatments groups. Finding from this study provide additional knowledge on the effect of freshwater prawns species against heavy metal contaminants.